Summertime Shakespeare projects

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

StarWars_final_72It’s only a month since I wrote a round-up covering some of the new developments and forthcoming events, but, well, it’s been a busy month.

First off, and probably the publication that’s got the most attention, is the new book published at the beginning of July, Shakespeare’s Star Wars, by Ian Doescher. This book is a retelling of the story of Star Wars in the style of Shakespeare, that is in iambic pentameter.

Its target audience is children for whom it might be a gateway into Shakespeare, the premise being that “they already know the storyline so they won’t have trouble following what’s happening.”

Phrases in the book include “Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not” and “Friends, rebels, starfighters, lend me your ears, while Han Solo at one point enquires “Is this an ast’roid field I see before me?”

I have to confess I haven’t read this book yet, but I can see that Shakespeare fans will  enjoy recognising the quotations, and as they say, “the chance to read about duelling with light-sabres  while trading lines in verse” should be a winner. There’s an informative review here.

Looking at the lighter side of the Shakespeare world, anyone who’s had enough of reading about anti-Stratfordian theories of who else might have written Shakespeare’s plays other than Shakespeare might enjoy Grace Tiffany’s latest post, Shakespeare in Fiction and Fact. She lets her imagination run riot with the idea that Shakespeare writes everybody else’s plays including Jonson, Marlowe and many others.

Another approach to helping young people enjoy Shakespeare’s plays is being created by Shakespeare At Play, a company that produced video performances of Shakespeare’s plays embedded within a fully annotated and uncut version of the text. “Readers can scroll along with the text as they watch the action unfold, so that they can experience Shakespeare’s plays the way they were intended: in performance, brought to life by the human voice, loaded as it is with tone, nuance and subtlety. Shakespeare At Play’s productions are simple and easy-to-follow, with a focus put on the clarity of text and the ease of the story. The actors are in simple, modern dress with few set pieces, props or other modern theatrical embellishments to muddy up the storytelling.”

The people behind the company are all alumni of the University of Toronto Drama Program, committed to finding ways of using technology in education. As well as the performances each scene is introduced with an audio clip providing a synopsis of the scene as well as things to look out for.

So far Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are available in the Apple iBooks store  and Hamlet  will be released in mid-October.  The Shakespeare at PlayApp is also due for release soon and there’s more information on the website.

Sonnet Man

Sonnet Man

Meanwhile, there’s also a new musical project written by rap artist Devon Glover, called The Sonnet Man Hip Hop Shakespeare Fusion, aiming to introduce children to Shakespeare and raise language skills by  providing performances and workshops for students throughout the U.S.

With his manager Arje Shaw he’s now looking for support so that he can reach more students worldwide, and is running a Kickstarter campaign. Do take a look and help out if you can.
LOVEAnother project based on the Sonnets is the show called L.O.V.E. This production by the Swansea-based theatre company Volcano is being performed at the Edinburgh Fringe during August. The company is celebrating its 25th anniversary by reviving this, one of the most successful of its productions, with a totally new cast.

It’s described as “an exuberant, sensual and violently passionate piece of landmark theatre” which has won a number of awards. Using verse, song and dance its style is raw, energetic physical theatre. Sounds great, and here’s the link. Let’s hope they have a wonderful time in Edinburgh.

SomersetHouse_Film4SummerScreen_2013_One of the most powerful Shakespeare films ever made is Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, a version of Macbeth in which a samurai warrier and his scheming wife plot murder, with the inevitable consequences. Even after fifty years it’s still greatly admired, and on 15 August it’s being screened outdoors  in the glorious surroundings of Somerset House in London. On the same day there is also a lecture about the film, and details can be found here.

call mr robesonLooking forward a little further, Tayo Aluko is performing his one-man show Call Mr Robeson. It’s based on the true story of one of the most famous Othellos of all time, Paul Robeson, and Mr Aluko has not only secured a four week run for his play at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London’s Covent Garden during October, he’s also organising a festival in London called Art is a Weapon. This will bring in acts from Canada, South Africa, Nigeria and the UK during Black History Month. Look up the link for more information about this great event.

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Digital Shakespeare: asking questions about the future

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Teenage boy using laptop and mobile phoneEarlier this week I attended a day of discussions at the University of Nottingham on  Digital Shakespeare, with the subtitle authorship and authority. One of a series of workshops, practitioners and academics were there to share ideas and discuss the directions which future projects might take.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my notes taken during the day are almost all questions. What is Shakespearean text? Does the internet change the was we approach Shakespeare, and the way we work in general? And the question with which we started: What do we mean by Digital Shakespeare anyway?

A few years ago, digital Shakespeare largely meant databases, or digitised versions of Shakespeare’s texts, magically searchable. Digitisation made it possible to show onscreen the texts themselves: folios and quartos, plus images of past productions, paintings and book illustrations, plus sound and video recordings. Just in 2010 the journal Shakespeare Quarterly devoted a whole issue to Shakespeare and New Media in which Whitney Anne Trettien, in her article Disciplining Digital Humanities, examined a series of current projects, such as The British Library’s Shakespeare Quartos project and MIT’s Shakespeare performance in Asia. In another article in the same issue, Andrew Murphy compared three open Internet Editions. 

In the last few years many things have changed. This week we talked a lot about the blurring of boundaries: digital projects are now much less confined to the large organisations such as the British Library, and are being embraced by a much wider range of smaller partners. The attendees at Nottingham came from diverse backgrounds including universities, libraries, publishers, theatre companies and even an individual (me).

To me the most important effect of digitisation, in particular social media, is the democratisation of learning. Barriers between organisations which have up to now held on tightly to knowledge and amateurs are being broken down. Roberta Pearson suggested that organisations (many of which are funded by the public) must open up and invite fans into “the walled garden”. And in planning projects there’s a need to include people from a wide range of disciplines as well as from different backgrounds and nationalities.

Twitter is an easy tool for amateurs to adopt: Pete Kirwan observed that there are at least 150 people on Twitter calling themselves William Shakespeare.  And there are now multiple ways in which people can remodel or rehash Shakespeare’s plays. One of the people present at Nottingham is researching YouTube videos, one of the simplest ways in which individuals can get creative with Shakespeare.

Quintessence of Dust, one of the projects featured on MyShakespeare

Quintessence of Dust, one of the projects featured on MyShakespeare

Last year the RSC, as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, launched a digital project called myShakespeare. Sarah Ellis, Digital Producer, was the person behind it as well as the recent Midsummer Night’s Dreaming project. myShakespeare gave people “a place to consider what Shakespeare means to us today. A creative space to share our ideas and thoughts”. You can still see the responses which this project produced, a great shop window for ideas which otherwise would have received much less attention.

I’ve mentioned several times the Year of Shakespeare website, a place in which to find reviews and information about the many productions of Shakespeare that were part of the World Shakespeare Festival, and encouraged public participation.

Other questions focused on apps: one person present asked why he should want an app when he already has the web.  In the Observer last Sunday a new book by Ethan Zuckerman, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection was reviewed. Zuckerman argues that the internet is actually making us more insular. In the past the mainstream media decided for us what was important and what was not, but no longer. “We’ve built – and use – information tools (such as search and social networking systems) that embody our biases towards things that affect, or are relevant to, those who are nearest and dearest to us. They give us the information we want, but not necessarily the information that we might need”.

Examining the future of digital in the arts is the point of the Digital R&D fund for the Arts, providing resources to “support collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology providers, and researchers.” The funded projects will enhance audience reach, and results will be disseminated to the wider arts sector”. One of the participants at a forum held in February highlighted the importance of the medium, tweeting that “Many more people may experience our content through social media & blogs than visit our websites”. Here’s a link to one of the projects, based around storytelling and playscripts with a Leeds theatre company.

And an emerging collaboration between Queen Mary College London and the University of Warwick, Global Shakespeare, will be headed from September by Professor David Schalkwyk, formerly Director of Research at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC.  “Global Shakespeare has been set up to shape the future research agenda in 21st century Shakespeare studies across all platforms including criticism, performance, history, and media from television to digital reproduction.”

I’d like to thank the University of Nottingham, and in particular Roberta Pearson, Kate Rumbold and Peter Kirwan, for their hospitality this week, and all the participants for a stimulating day in the continually-evolving world of Digital Shakespeare.

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Shakespeare’s first female critic: Margaret Cavendish

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

women reading shakespeare ed ann thompson sasha robertsMargaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, is one of the less well-known early commentators on Shakespeare, yet her “Sociable Letter” on Shakespeare, published in 1664, is “the first critical essay ever to be published on Shakespeare”. This judgement appears in Women Reading Shakespeare, 1660-1900, edited by Ann Thompson and Sasha Roberts.

Others such as Ben Jonson and Thomas Fuller had written in general terms about his abilities and life, but Margaret’s letter, (probably in fact a fictional letter written as if from one woman to another), shows that she knows many of Shakespeare’s plays well, probably from reading them rather than seeing them performed on stage.

In the letter she defends Shakespeare’s plays from the charge that they  “were made up onely with Clowns, Fools, Watchmen and the like”. She continues “Shakespeare did not want Wit, to Express to the Life all Sorts of Persons, of what Quality, Profession, Degree, Breeding, or Birth soever”.

She perceptively observes that “to Express Naturally, to the Life, a Mean Country Wench, as a Great Lady, a Courtesan, as a Chast Woman, a Mad man, as a man in his right Reason and Senses, a Drunkard, as a Sober man, a Knave, as an Honest man,… nay, it Expresses and Declares a Greater Wit, to Express, and  Deliver to Posterity, the Extravagancies of Madness, the Subtilty of Knaves, the Ignorance of Clowns, and the Simplicity of Naturals, or the Craft of Feigned Fools, than to Express Regularities, Plain Honesty, Courtly Garbs, or Sensible Discourse.”

Margaret Cavendish

Margaret Cavendish

I wasn’t aware what an interesting life she led. Margaret was born in 1623, the daughter of a wealthy gentleman, and as a girl spent her life between Colchester and London. Inevitably her life was disrupted by the civil war, during which she became a maid of honour to the Queen, Henrietta Maria, going with her into exile in Paris where she met and married her husband.

William Cavendish was thirty years older than his wife, and recently widowed when they met. A staunch royalist, he had already been a courtier, close to Prince Henry, the heir to the throne who had died young. He had commissioned work by Ben Jonson and was a patron to both John Ford and James Shirley. Both William and Margaret were writers of drama, and were interested in science. Writing on the subjects of natural philosophy, Margaret commented on the writings of Rene Descartes and  Thomas Hobbes, and after the Restoration of the monarchy she attended scientific demonstrations by Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. William wrote a number of songs, and plays performed in London in the 1660s, collaborating with Dryden and Thomas Shadwell.

Welbeck Abbey in the 17th century

Welbeck Abbey in the 17th century

Though well-connected at court they spent most of their time at Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, at which they entertained lavishly. The University of Nottingham holds several archive collections relating to the family and this web page contains lots of interesting information about them.

There’s another tantalising Shakespeare connection. It’s known that in 1643 during the Civil War, the Queen, Henrietta Maria stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon on her way to Oxford, where the court in exile was held. King Charles I’s love of Shakespeare was well known and by tradition it is thought that she stayed at Shakespeare’s house, New Place, one of the largest houses in the town and still lived in by his daughter Susanna.

Poems and Fancies, one of Margaret Cavendish's publications

Poems and Fancies, one of Margaret Cavendish’s publications

Margaret Cavendish is thought to have become a lady in waiting to Henrietta Maria after her return to Oxford, just after this visit to Shakespeare’s home, so it’s unlikely she was there. And even more frustratingly William, who Margaret was to marry a couple of years later, had been accompanying the queen from the North of England to Oxford in May-June 1643, but was forced to remain in the North to combat Parliamentarian forces. Otherwise he would have been with her when she stayed in Stratford too. Knowing that both Margaret and William were admirers of Shakespeare it’s a pity that both missed the chance to meet his daughter and stay in his house, and to write about the experience.

Margaret was a women of extraordinary talent, though known as an eccentric. When she died in 1673, several years before her much older husband, she was buried in Westminster Abbey after a funeral procession that wound through the streets of London. And William gathered together and published her writings, Letters and Poems in Honour of the Incomparable Princess, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, work which is gradually receiving the attention it deserves.

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Shakespeare’s royal babies

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

DSCN3145Waking up this morning to the news that Kate has been admitted to hospital in the early stages of labour I cursed myself for not having a blog post about royal babies all ready to go. It has been after all one of the most hotly-anticipated events of recent months.

My first post on this blog, in April 2011, was on the occasion of Kate and William’s marriage, a day of so many Shakespearean resonances that I couldn’t resist it. I wasn’t ready then, either, setting up the blog on one side of the room as, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the preparations at Westminster Abbey on the TV. As the happy couple walked up the aisle together I snapped at the screen and posted the photo along with the blog, just as I’m doing today.

DSCN3146I commented then that Kates haven’t always had an easy time in Shakespeare’s plays, and the same is true of royal babies. Perdita in The Winter’s Tale is rejected by her father as a bastard, though it does her no harm in the end, and Mariana, Pericles’ daughter, is subject to many trials and dangers before she is almost magically reunited with her father.

In some plays, pregnancy adds to the darkness of the play. In Measure for Measure Juliet’s pregnancy reveals her relationship with Claudio and causes him to be condemned to death, and Bertram makes Helena’s pregnancy a condition of his acceptance of her as a wife in All’s Well That Ends Well.

Fortunately for Kate, the question of succession isn’t really the issue (though this baby will almost certainly be third in line to the throne regardless of gender).  But in the current TV drama The White Queen, which dramatises much of the period covered by Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Richard III plays,  it’s made only too clear that the main, if not the only role of the queen is to produce a male heir.

From The White Queen

From The White Queen

Last night’s episode was a reminder too of the risks and agonies of medieval childbirth. Here is a link to a post showing medieval representations of childbirth from illuminated manuscripts. The main focus of the series is Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV. Already a widow, her first three children with Edward were all girls, so the anticipation must have been intense. Only a boy child could hope to improve the chances of an unchallenged succession, and eventually she bore two boys.

But that did not take into account Edward’s early death, leaving her little sons vulnerable to the squabbles of nobles. nor the ambitions of Shakespeare’s Richard III. “Woe to the land that’s governed by a child” was a justified opinion.Elizabeth’s sons are imprisoned in the Tower of London, “Rough cradle for such little pretty ones”, before being murdered on the orders of their uncle. The old queen, Margaret, taunts her:
Where are thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
Who sues, and kneels, and says “God save the queen?
Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;…
Thus hath the course of justice whirl’d about
And left thee but a very prey to time.

The royal baby that has the greatest impact in Shakespeare is the infant Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, carried onto the stage at the end of Henry VIII, and blessed by her father. In a piece of unabashed royalist propaganda,  Archbishop Cranmer prophesies:
Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;
She shall be loved and feared: her own shall bless her;
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
And hang their heads in sorrow: good grows with her;
In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry song of peace to all his neighbours.

But later proclaimed illegitimate, in disgrace, threatened, and put into the hands of unscrupulous guardians, Elizabeth’s early life bore quite a resemblance to those other royal daughters until the tide turned with the death of her sister Mary.

DSCN3168How different is it for the latest royal baby. The world’s media, loving a good news royal story, has gone into overdrive. On the hottest day of the year, sweltering film crews are stationed opposite the hospital hoping for a swift delivery. Kate’s baby, boy or girl, is assured a privileged lifestyle and a good prospect of eventually inheriting the throne. In the mean time we can all enjoy the game of guessing what name will be chosen, and waiting for those first photos.

PS: Unless you have been living in a cave since Monday afternoon, you will already know that Kate’s baby boy was born at 4.24pm on 22 July, weighing 8lb 60z!

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Taking Hamlet to the world: Dominic Dromgoole’s “lunatic idea”

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Sylvia Morris
Dominic Dromgoole

Dominic Dromgoole

You have to hand it to Dominic Dromgoole, the Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe: he’s not afraid of a challenge. Looking to beat the 2012 Globe to Globe Festival project, his latest scheme is to take Hamlet on World Tour, and when he says World, he means all of it.  “I think having a lunatic idea is a very good thing, it’s a great way to keep everybody focused and dazzled and delighted by the ambition and energy of the company,” he said. “If we’re going to do every country in the world it has to be every country, we’re not going to leave anyone out.”

There are links here to the Guardian‘s, the BBC’s and Reuters‘ reports on the announcement.

This means 205 countries in two years, beginning on 23 April 2014, 450 years since Shakespeare’s birth and ending on 23 April 2016, 400 years since his death. Hopefully the company won’t often find themselves asking “What country, friend, is this?”, though as the schedule works out at two a week they could hardly be blamed for getting confused.

I thought the 2012 Globe to Globe sounded more than “slightly mad” when first announced, with 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 different languages staged in London by companies from around the world over a period of just a few weeks. The project included Troilus and Cressida in Maori and Coriolanus in Japanese, among many others.

Joshua McGuire at the Globe, 2011

Joshua McGuire at the Globe, 2011

Globe to Globe Hamlet will be playing a tried and tested two and a half hour version of the play which they’ve already taken on tour around Britain, Europe and the United States. Twelve actors will play in rotation, eight at a time to give everyone some time off and to allow for unforeseen events. Touring has always been hard work. Dromgoole states that “the spirit of touring…was always central to Shakespeare’s work”, but it may be worth remembering that the players in Hamlet are forced to travel not because they want to, but because the fashion for boys’ companies has forced them to find new audiences.

They’ll travel by automobile, boat, train and plane, and will perform in town squares, on beaches and in jungle clearings as well as the odd theatre. Will they go to places mentioned in Hamlet: Vienna in Austria, Paris in France, and in Italy, the Capitol in Rome, as well as the already-confirmed final performance at Elsinore Castle on 23 April 2016?

The logistics make my head spin, and I’m hoping they have a crack team of administrators/fixers to help sort out not just the transport and fundraising but also the diplomatic issues for countries like North Korea. Antarctica will be a challenge for other reasons, but the line “‘Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart”, will certainly strike a chord with the audience (will this consist of the Antarctic survey team, or a few million penguins, I wonder?).

The reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe

The reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe

I’m also intrigued to think how this marathon will be recorded. The Globe to Globe Festival productions were part of the 2012 Year of Shakespeare, and  the Year of Shakespeare website was created to collect together basic information about the productions and reviews of them. Earlier this year a book was published that put this material into printed form.

This new project has the potential to be yet more influential, and to find more new ways of recording performance. The play will be captioned for non English-speaking countries, and some of the countries have never see staged Shakespeare at all before. Being able to access people’s reactions by recording members of the audience on the spot, but also allowing them to post their own impressions, could be terrific. Hopefully photographs will be taken of each venue, cast and crew will be writing a blog as they go, and there will be efforts to capture local responses in each place whatever the medium: TV, radio, newspapers. It’s a project that could really show off the potential of the internet to connect people from around the world through Shakespeare. If you’re interested in seeing how the project develops a Twitter feed  @WorldHamlet has already been set up.

While Shakespeare’s Globe has embraced the idea of transmitting performances to audiences via the cinema and DVD, nothing beats the experience of live performance. Those involved will need stamina, good health and a robust sense of humour as well as acting ability, and taking part is sure to be a life-changing experience. Hopefully it will also have a long-term effect in the far-flung places visited by the tour.  All  the world’s a stage indeed.

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World Listening Day: Shakespeare in concert

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

globe henry 6Today is World Listening Day, and although it’s mostly focused on hearing music and the sounds of nature, there is also a link with Shakespeare. Earlier this week a journalist, Rupert Christiansen, wrote a piece in the Telegraph expressing his wish to experience Shakespeare by listening to the poetry rather than watching it. He must have expected it to be controversial:  he raised a series of questions about the audibility of actors and the eccentricity of directorial concepts as well as suggesting that Shakespeare might be performed in concert conditions rather than in full productions.

This article was extensively retweeted and I was fascinated to read the often vitriolic comments of tweeters. Maybe it was because the article appeared in the Telegraph, or because Christiansen mentioned opera, but many tweets suggested that a “concert” performance would be elitist. The implication seemed to be that a theatre performance is democratic, an interesting thought for those who have struggled for years to overcome the popular notion that Shakespeare is only for posh people.

Christiansen’s tone in the article is actually quite apologetic, and I think he has a point. He quotes the poet Stevie Smith watching Romeo and Juliet and finding siding “irrevocably with the verse” made impossible when ” striving so hard to rise above the clash and clamour of inessentials”. She was probably thinking about the fights, or the banquet, but Shakespeare wisely cut the distractions right down when it came to the balcony scene, set at night, between the two leading players.

Shakespeare, particularly in his more mature plays, often gave his actors show-stopping speeches to deliver. He must have relished writing these virtuouso pieces of poetry, which sometimes have little to do with the action of the play. But Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry was still written to be performed, not just read, and it’s best appreciated by being heard.

I remember a performance at the Stratford Poetry Festival in which Richard Pasco, a master of Shakespearean verse speaking, delivered Clarence’s great speech from Richard III. He describes his dream of drowning, and this is just a bit of it:
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept –
As ’twere in scorn of eyes – reflecting gems,
That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

Eileen Atkins as Rosalind and Richard Pasco as Jaques in As You Like It, 1973

Eileen Atkins as Rosalind and Richard Pasco as Jaques in As You Like It, 1973

The speech isn’t totally irrelevant: Clarence goes on to be drowned, though in a butt of malmsey, not in the sea, but that didn’t stop Shakespeare imagining the scene. It was magical. I’d also seen Pasco performing the role on the same stage, just the year before, but it never had the same impact as it did in the “concert” performance. Incidentally, Richard Pasco’s performance of the Seven Ages of Man speech from As You Like It, another of those arias, provided the young Gregory Doran with the starting point for his obsession with Shakespeare.

As well as poetry readings, I’ve found one-man shows like Ian McKellen’s Acting Shakespeare a great way of hearing the words, and McKellen effectively manages to play more than one role at a time, for instance playing both Falstaff and Hal from Henry IV part 1.

ian mckellenI’ve just found this recording of a performance of this show on Vimeo: made in 1982, it looks very dated and I would guess it’s an early version of the show which he went on to refine, but McKellen’s formidable skills are terrific to observe.

A production that came close to the idea suggested by Christiansen was the 1964 production of Hamlet with Richard Burton, directed by John Gielgud, in New York. With minimal directorial interpretation, and unencumbered by “costumes or flash-harry concepts”, Burton wore plain black clothes and used minimal props on an almost bare stage. Its enormous success, though, was put down more to the high-profile tempestuous relationship between Burton and Elizabeth Taylor rather than the production itself.

The production which sparked off Christiansen’s comments was the current Globe production of the three parts of Henry VI, plays which have been admirably presented by the RSC on a number of occasions.

Director Nick Bagnall has adapted the three plays to run at two hours each in order that they can be presented at some of the actual battlefields where the Wars of the Roses were fought. “A lot of talking in a field doesn’t really work – it needs to be action-packed,” he says. “I’ve got rid of all of the chit-chat and gone straight to the bone. The purists will probably hate me for it, but you can’t please everybody.”

You can, I think, see Christiansen’s point, especially since there are speeches in even these early plays that are worth listening to. So I’m all for the idea of allowing the words their full weight and allowing my “mind’s eye” to imagine the rest. Maybe when a production is being staged the company could do a concert performance, and see how it goes. If anybody wants to have a try, I’d love to be there!

 

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Walking with Shakespeare: the new Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon app

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

POI-01-1When I chose the sub-title for this blog, I picked “In Shakespeare’s footsteps” partly to suggest that I would be following, rather than stating my own opinions, but also because I love walking. There’s something about the act of putting one foot in front of the other that encourages reflection and I like to think there’s something special about experiencing places he knew in the same way he did.

I’ve always enjoyed showing visitors round the town, but without a carrying voice the job of tourist guide was never an option. But when at the beginning of the year I got an email out of the blue from the Hungarian company Pocket Guide suggesting I might like to write a walking tour of Stratford-upon-Avon which would be published as a smartphone app, I jumped at it.

Pocketguide_logoNow, finally, the app is published.  Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon leads you around the town from site to site. The GPS system in your smartphone senses when you are approaching one of the points of interest and automatically begins the commentary, then tells you where to go next. Pocket Guide wanted to create walks led by local people who would have their own angle on their special place, rather than using regular tour guides. So I recorded myself reading the commentaries and sent off dozens of photographs of the town.

The tour links people and places around the town with quotations from Shakespeare’s works, and shows how he brought memories of his childhood into the plays. It also records some of the ways in which he is still commemorated in the town.

If you want to experience the app, you can download it from the Pocket Guide website or go to the App Store. It’s available for both Apple and Android systems. First download the Pocket Guide app itself, then search for Stratford-upon-Avon. The free version is immediately available for online use where you have a wifi connection, but for the full effect you need the offline download which costs around £2.  When you’re doing the tour you don’t need to keep stopping to read a guide book or consult a map, though the onscreen map always shows you where you are, and the written commentary can be read on the phone. You can stop half way round and even access it from home to listen again and look at the photos.

If you don’t have a smartphone but would like to hear a sample of the commentary, here’s the section that relates to The Dell, just next to Holy Trinity Church.

Stratford still has its own unique atmosphere and character, but much of this comes back to its most famous resident: the beauty of the riverside, historic buildings and quality shops and restaurants would not be the same without the tradition of visiting the town which has built up over more than two centuries.

POI-19-2I also believe Stratford is a town best seen on foot, and in an ideal world I would like to see far more people getting out of their cars and walking or cycling round it. Pedestrianising the main streets would allow those with disabilities, children and dogs to move safely and even to enjoy the experience instead of having a constant battle with cars and delivery vehicles. By coincidence an article in this morning’s Times quotes a leading architect, Lord Rogers of Riverside, who believes that within 20 years there will be a widespread ban on cars in London, with cycling helping to solve congestion, and small electric rickshaws to help to take the strain. He also calls for cities and towns to be designed to give priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Apparently several towns are currently discussing pedestrianisation including Oxford, Aberdeen and Brighton. If it was encouraged we might be able to get an even stronger impression of what life was like in Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon.

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Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth: an interpretation for our times?

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Macbeth_MainSir Kenneth Branagh’s “electrifying” and “immersive” production of Macbeth is the current hot Shakespeare ticket, playing for just a month in a disused church in Manchester that seats only 250 people. It’s ensured that Manchester’s International Festival has received worldwide attention. A quick internet search reveals reviews from right across the USA and responses from ticket-holders making a special trip from as far away as Germany.

Although the tickets cost £65 each, with a few concessions for Manchester residents, it’s reported that they sold out in half an hour. All is not lost for those without tickets though: in Manchester on 20 July this intimate production is being relayed live to a giant outdoor screen, and simultaneously will be shown in around 650 cinemas around the world.

Michael Billington of the Guardian has recommended people not to miss this live event and most of the reviews have shared his enthusiasm. Here are links to the review in the Daily Telegraph, The Stage, and the Financial Times, and a roundup from the USA.

macbeth branaghThe production marks the return of Kenneth Branagh to the stage in a Shakespeare role for the first time in ten years. Now 52, I suspect he was waiting for the right moment to play this superb role. Macbeth is often played much younger, helping to explain his impetuosity in grasping the throne. In 2013 we’ve already seen two young Macbeths, by James McAvoy and, currently at the Globe, Joseph Millson. Both these have stressed the humour of the play, and at the Globe, the initial innocence of the protagonist. Other productions have made much of the importance of religion, or the horrors of the supernatural.

So it’s already been a great year for Macbeth, but Branagh’s production, rather as I heard Stephen Boxer say about Titus Andronicus, shows the effects of long-term violence on the human psyche. In his interview with Radio 4 Today’s Evan Davis Branagh talks about the idea of “dis-ease”, and how the play’s relevance lies in its preoccupation with the inner life, of what he calls “self-talk”. At least one of the morals of the play is that “you should be careful what you wish for because with it, comfort does not come”.

macbeth1_2610279bThe play has long had a reputation for bad luck, perhaps not surprisingly given the potential for accidents. In  this production the stakes are raised: the opening battle, only described by Shakespeare, is staged with thunder, lightning and rain as well as real swords wielded only a few feet from the audience. The Daily Telegraph reported that Branagh had injured one of the actors during this high-energy battle scene.

Ever since he first came to wide public view, with his 1984 RSC Henry V aged only 23, he’s been called the heir to Laurence Olivier, who notably brought many of Shakespeare’s plays to both stage and screen. A rumour is now circulating that he may be appointed to lead the Old Vic in London. This theatre housed the National Theatre for some years before the current building was constructed on the South Bank. The Artistic Director at the time was none other than Laurence Olivier.

Branagh’s career has twisted and turned since his early meteoric success, but in this Dominic Cavendish reminds us of the Branagh-mania which accompanied his precocious work in the 1980s.

If you want to catch this latest production, follow the link to book to see it at your local cinema live on 20 July, or if you’re lucky, at an Encore presentation later.

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Shakespeare and the sweet of the year

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Sylvia Morris
Dog-roses growing in a hedgerow on the Welcombe hills

Dog-roses growing in a hedgerow on the Welcombe hills

This week the UK is experiencing the warmest weather of the year. Whether it’s because last year was so disappointing, or because spring arrived so late,  summer is bringing with it an explosion of blooms with, it seems to me, an unusual intensity of scent.

In gardens, modern cultivars of plants mentioned by Shakespeare are blooming their hearts out, especially roses, honeysuckles and carnations. No character in Shakespeare personnifies the spirit of summer more than Perdita in The Winter’s Tale dressed as the goddess Flora,  in which
the fairest flowers o’th’season
Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors.

In the sheep-shearing scene Shakespeare raids his memory-bank for plants flowering or used at different seasons: herbs such as savory dried for winter, spring flowers like primroses for the young girls of the village and the summer flowers carnations and pinks.

Our garden roses, beautiful as they are, are mostly rather distantly related to the roses Shakespeare knew and valued for both the beauty of their flowers and their scent. “That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet”, as Juliet has it. Roses were grown in gardens (although the famous scene in which Lancastrians and Yorkists choose red and white roses is an invention), but dog roses, then as now, grow in hedgerows.

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle

Shakespeare’s familiarity with plants and flowers has often been commented on and Richard Mabey, in his wonderful book Flora Britannica, quotes a number of Shakespeare’s mentions, in particular of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle is a native plant now seen more often in our gardens than in hedgerows, which releases its scent more strongly in the evening. Titania, wooing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream refers to the plant’s winding habit as well as its intoxicating night-time scent.
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms…
So doth the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle,
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. 

The plant pictured is growing on a wall just across the road from Holy Trinity Church.

Earlier this week I went for a walk around the north Cotswolds, just a few miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon. As we walked along ancient footpaths bounded by hedgerows I was reminded time and again of plants mentioned by Shakespeare. Blackberry bushes are flowering abundantly just now and I would guess we’re in for a bumper harvest of these delicious fruits which were so common that Shakespeare describes them only as “plentiful”.

Also in the hedgerows were nettles, thistles and docks, dog-roses and elder bushes in full flower. Elder has a reputation for being an unlucky plant, Shakespeare mentioning the legend that Judas hung himself on an elder tree. Cow parsley, a wild plant called kecksies by Shakespeare (still commonly known as keck), has a number of other names including Queen Anne’s Lace, but is now past flowering, as is the beautiful hedgerow bush May.

In Henry V, the Duke of Burgundy likens France to a neglected garden:
her hedges even-pleach’d,
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disorder’d twigs; her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory
Doth root upon,…  The even mead, …
Wanting the scythe,…nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

I didn’t spot any hemlock on our walk, but these impressive, poisonous plants grow alongside the Avon near Stratford.

We walked past banks like Titania’s “where the wild thyme blows”,  covered in flowering buttercups, clover and common spotted orchids.

Wisteria growing on a Cotswold wall

Wisteria growing on a Cotswold wall

Visitors to Stratford can’t help noticing the wisteria that now covers many old buildings, and that flowered profusely a few weeks ago: it always seems sad to me that this gorgeous plant was only imported into England many years after Shakespeare’s lifetime, so he could never have seen and smelled it.  But there’s no doubt that he loved the plants he saw in  summertime in the gardens and countryside.

 

 

 

 

 

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On the road: travelling and communicating with Shakespeare

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

_68597625_murray_kissOf all the times for it to happen, on the day Andy Murray won Wimbledon my broadband connection failed, finally coming back to life about half an hour after he raised that trophy. I was painfully aware, all day, of how pathetically reliant I’ve become on the technology that lets me communicate with others around the world in seconds.

The nature and speed of travel and both real and online communication has been on my mind in the last few days. I’m very much looking forward to Ben Jonson’s Walk, a virtual walk that begins on 8 July. It follows Ben Jonson’s 1618 walk from London to Edinburgh, a leisurely journey that took him until September to complete. Jonson was in no rush, taking the opportunity to visit many of his genteel friends and admirers on the way. I wrote about it a week or two ago: the people in charge of the project at the University of Edinburgh are going to be tweeting and blogging as Ben travels, and it’s going to be a great reminder of just how difficult it used to be to get news from place to place.

HandlebardsThe theatre group Handlebards are already on the way to doing the journey in reverse. I was sent information about this wonderfully inventive tour a couple of weeks ago and am full of admiration for the all-male group who are spending the summer taking two of Shakespeare’s plays, Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet, on tour on their bicycles. They describe it as 4 actors, 4 bicycles, 40 characters and a 926 mile adventure. All their costumes, props, and tents are carried on the bikes with them. Take a look at their itinerary, which ends up in Chelsea on 23 August, and give them your support. This is a great idea that combines Shakespeare with caring for the environment and I’m already looking forward to seeing them perform Twelfth Night on 11 August at the Dell in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The plots of both Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet turn on the delivery of letters, especially in Romeo and Juliet where the lack of a reliable postal service means that Romeo fails to receive Friar Laurence’s letter telling him that Juliet is not really dead.

Hardwicke,Bess(CShrewsbury)01I’ve recently discovered a fascinating new website, created by the University of Glasgow, Bess of Hardwick’s letters, which bring together all the known surviving letters written by or to this formidable woman. Although modestly born around 1521, Bess made herself a powerful matriarch and the founder of a substantial dynasty. She married four times, and her husbands brought her wealth and status. She is best remembered today for building some of the most impressive stately homes of the day, especially Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. To quote the site:
Bess’s letters bring to life her extraordinary story and allow us to eavesdrop on her world. The letters allow us to reposition Bess as a complex woman of her times, immersed in the literacy and textual practices of everyday life as she weaves a web of correspondence that stretches from servants, friends and family, to queens and officers of state.

The site contains a lot more than just digitised images of the 234 letters. Many of them have been transcribed, allowing anyone to read them (though the original spelling has been retained), and they are searchable.

One of Bess of Hardwick's letters

One of Bess of Hardwick’s letters

What I’ve particularly enjoyed though is the background information, commentaries that provide guides to the whole business of letterwriting from the preparation of paper and ink, handwriting, how letters were delivered, and the writing styles adopted by Bess herself and by those writing to her, depending on the circumstances. Many of the letters are written in what we would think a sycophantic style, but her extreme politeness and flattery obviously worked.

One of the letters, from 1573, offers guidance to an unknown recipient on how to write a persuasive letter, based on her own experience. There’s little punctuation to help, and the spelling is difficult, but you can almost hear her voice suggesting “the more earnest and plain it is the more good it will do”. She writes that the recipient of the letter
 wylbe the more yours when he knows by your Letters that you thenke your selfe behoulding to hym and ys content to make your selfe so styll;/ your selfe wyll vse more effectuall and good words then I can deuyce./ … with promys that you wyll euer bethankfull to hym and hys and to requyt yt by all the good means that shall Ly in your powar, the more earnyst and playn yt ys the more good yt wyll doe.

Shakespeare was a master of persuasive writing, and it’s regrettable that we don’t have a single one of his own letters. But perhaps we’re better off with those within the plays, because Shakespeare’s letters home were probably like the one from actor Edward Alleyn to his wife from Bristol in which, instead of telling us how the plays have been going down he reminds her to dye his stockings black and to sow spinach in the garden.

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